The Choices He Takes: Up in Flames
by Night Fox15
Summary: If the war is over, why does the future look so bleak? Draco's world looks as cheerless as the rubble and remains Hogwarts has become as he reflects upon the choices taken away from him. Harry Potter, hero of the wizarding world, has taken it all away from him. Canon. Genfic.


Draco Malfoy hunched atop a pile of rubble, probably the remnants of one of the many stone statues or walls around Hogwarts. He watched the people below walking slowly, aimlessly around the remains of the castle, some limping, some supporting fallen comrades. Despite their victory, their feet shuffled along, lost, their heads down, eyes on the ground, as if hoping some monster would come out of the ground and swallow them up.

The war had ended only hours ago, but it would take years to fix everything back to the way it was before Voldemort, if it was even possible. No one had come out of this unaffected, no matter what side they had chosen. Voldemort had been defeated, but at a heavy cost.

Malfoy ran a finger along the length of pale, hard wood in his hands. Ten inches long, with a unicorn hair inside, it was his most powerful possession. He hadn't held it in his hands like this for a while-too long. He was glad to have it back, but somehow he couldn't shake the feeling of disappointment it held.

At Malfoy Manor Draco had been a prisoner almost as much as the Lovegood girl and the wandmaker had been. The only difference was that his captivity had not been as obvious as being locked in a dark, dank cellar.

And then Potter and his high and mighty friends were hauled in like naughty puppies for him to identify. Of course he'd known immediately who they were—that red Weasley hair was a dead giveaway, even if he hadn't been able to recognize Potter at the merest glance—but despite his dislike for the trio, he'd needed to do something, _anything _to separate himself from Lucius's deeds at Malfoy Manor and show himself that he still had some freedom left, albeit a weak one, only enough to tell petty lies to try and thwart his father's plans.

Couldn't his father see that, despite the promises the Dark Lord made, he had no freedom? He had given it all up to support a man—if Voldemort even was a man anymore—who cared nothing for him. Draco despised his father's unwavering, fanatical loyalty to the Dark Lord, and hated even more what Lucius had forced him to do to this effect.

He brushed his fingers absentmindedly over his left forearm, feeling the raised skin of the Death Eater mark. He had hit an emotional low that year, forced to become one of the things he most hated-not because of their evilness, no, but because of what they had done to his family. He remembered that day in the bathroom, that dull, bottomless pain inside him as he studied his reflection, hating every bit of what Lucius had made of him and wanting nothing more than to die. Not on the Death Eaters' terms, not on Voldemort's. His own. And then that emotional pain was replaced by a burning, stinging agony in his chest and a curse meant to kill him saved him. Finally, he forced his thoughts back to the wand in his other hand. He was unwilling to spend any longer in that dark place in his mind.

Ironically, when Potter had taken his wand from him, it had given him some ounce of freedom, despite the hindrance it proved. Perhaps it was that, as the lack of a wand lessened him as a wizard, not as much was expected of him from the Dark Lord and his servants. Certainly, not much had been asked of him, apart from the menial chores he had been forced to do anyway, wandless or not.

That lasted only a short while, until the absence of a wand became an absence of _his _wand, and he was expected to help out again, regardless of his new borrowed wand even worked, which it had not. Shoved and pushed around by everyone around him, Draco hit a point that even the Golden Boy couldn't save him from with a badly-aimed curse, not that that had ever been his intention.

And then, in the middle of the blazing Fiend Fyre that idiot Crabbe had conjured up, Malfoy finally saw a way out. Not one he'd never contemplated before, but only then was it such an easy option. All he'd have to do was let go.

And then Harry bloody Potter had turned up out of the blue with his magical friends to save the day. Draco almost wished that he'd left the asshole in his family's cellar, because maybe if he had, Potter'd hate him enough to let him die.

Until he'd realized that it wouldn't free him, to take that way out, and then suddenly Draco wasn't so content to die just then. When he died, it was to be on his own terms, not the Fiend Fyre's, not fate's, and most certainly not that bloody idiot Crabbe's. And so he let Harry Potter save him, not once, but twice again.

Now it was his choice again, now it was in his hands, whether or not to end it. To end what the parents he owed nothing to had begun.

He turned his wand over in his hands again, contemplating it. His thoughts no longer floated back to the past, but towards the end. Thanks to the Death Eaters, he knew countless spell for ending life, but could he use any of them upon himself?

He twisted the wand from hand to hand, the movements becoming faster and jerkier as his thoughts plummeted and rose towards the end.

And then a voice behind him answered his question for him. "No."

The wand stilled in his fingers and Malfoy closed his eyes. Potter. Again. He always wanted to save someone, didn't he, and that someone always seemed to be Malfoy.

It took him a while to find his voice after being up here alone, not talking for so long. "What do you want, Potter?" He could hear the bitterness in his own voice. Just as Crabbe had taken away his choice in the Room of Requirement, now Potter, the one who had saved him over and over again, was taking that from him again.

Potter took a long time answering. His voice was hoarse too, but was empty of any heroism or righteousness, whatever those may have sounded like. It held only weariness and sadness.

"Twice, Malfoy. Remember that."

And Draco knew that as long as either of them was alive, his life would forever be bound to Potter's. His life was no longer his. His to take, his to live, even if it ever had been. What Potter had given him-his choice-he was now taking away from him again.

No matter what, someone always took that from him.


End file.
